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Description:Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue. One of the oldest and most prestigious journals in economics, the Journal of Political Economy has since 1892 presented significant research and scholarship in economic theory and practice. The journal aims to publish highly selective, widely cited articles of current relevance that will have a long-term impact on economics research. JPE"s analytical, interpretive, and empirical studies in a number of areas - including monetary theory, fiscal policy, labor economics, development, micro- and macroeconomic theory, international trade and finance, industrial organization, and social economics - are essential reading for all economists wishing to keep up with substantive new research in the discipline.

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Terms Related to the Moving Wall

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Absorbed: Journals that are combined with another title.

Complete: Journals that are no longer published or that have been
combined with another title.

Abstract

This paper examines legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries. The results show that common‐law countries generally have the strongest, and frenchcivillaw countries the weakest, legal protections of investors, with German‐and scandinavin‐civil‐law countries located in the middle. We also find that concentration of ownership of shares in the largest public companies is negativelyrelated to investor protections, consistent with the hypothesis that small, diversified share‐holders are unlikely to be important in countries that fail to protect their rights.